


Play On

by WorryinglyInnocent



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: AU, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-23
Updated: 2015-03-23
Packaged: 2018-03-19 07:29:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,071
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3601518
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WorryinglyInnocent/pseuds/WorryinglyInnocent
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><em>"Belle hasn't played her violin since the day her mother died, fifteen years ago."</em>  </p>
<p>A busker with a cello reawakens Belle French's love of music. Perhaps this could be the beginning of a beautiful duet.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Play On

There was an old guy busking with a violin in town the other day and it inspired me. Since muse is problematic at the moment, I thought I'd do a quick one-shot since I had the inspiration for it and I think we need something sweet right now.

======

Belle hasn't played her violin since the day her mother died, fifteen years ago. She was all set for a scholarship to the music school, all set for achieving her dream of playing for the Philharmonic. But since that day, fifteen years ago, Belle has not played a single note. She has picked up her instrument and her bow, she has cleaned them lovingly and kept them in good condition, because she could not bear to let her fondest memories of her mother deteriorate into dust. She has got as far as resting the violin against her shoulder and nestling her chin against it, and touching the bow to the strings, but no sound has ever been made since her mother's death. It is as if the music inside Belle died with her.

Colette French was a musician, and she passed on that love of melody to her daughter. She gave her violin and piano lessons from an early age, and Belle was enraptured by the music. Colette had music in her very veins, and when she played, Belle could hear her own unique music floating through the notes that she played. Belle had always thought that she had the same thing, but once Colette was gone, she realised that she didn't, she had simply been channelling her mother's music into her own, and she didn't dare to play again for fear that her ability had been lost, that she would no longer be able to lose herself in a piece like she always could before. Every time she picks up her violin and cradles it under her chin, her courage fails her, because she doesn't want to think about what will happen if the music no longer sounds the same without her mother. Making music is a memory so intrinsically linked with her mother that Belle does not want it to be marred in any way. So she puts aside her love of playing, lays it to rest quietly with her mother. It's not that she does not want to play again. It's simply that she fears to.

Perhaps it is telling that Belle chose to go into library work when she quietly and calmly made a clean break from her musical ambitions. The only place where she is guaranteed silence, no music in the background. It suits her well. She never goes to concerts any more, never listens to the classical stations on the radio. She unconsciously cut all the ties to her melodic life. She prefers the silence in the library, it makes it easier to ignore the twitching in her fingers that makes her take up an imaginary instrument and almost, almost begin to play it, almost begin to hear the introduction in her head.

When Belle moves to Storybrooke to re-open the library there, the first thing that she notices is the music. She doesn't hear it when she enters the library but when she moves into the back room and opens the window to let fresh air into the dusty room, she also lets the music in.

A solo air on strings, lower than a violin. Cello. Someone's playing the cello outside. Belle stops and listens at the window, and for a moment, she is carried away by the music again. It's just as it was fifteen years ago, the same feeling, the same joy as the melody takes her away to far-off places to which music is the only transport. It's a haunting tune, a sad one, and it's utterly mesmerising. Belle doesn't think she's ever heard it before.

She's torn between shutting the window again and shutting out the music, and going to investigate its source. It's been so long since she was this engrossed in a piece. She closes her eyes and listens to the clear tune. It can't hurt to listen, after all.

When the piece ends, Belle opens her eyes and comes back to herself. There is silence for a long time afterwards and she begins to think that maybe she dreamed it, but a few minutes later the unseen musician begins to play again. She has been without music for so long, she has avoided it as much as she can, and to be so suddenly enveloped within it once more is intoxicating.

She closes the window, leaves the library, and walks around the building.

There's a man sitting on a bench, not far from the window to the back office, cello resting between his knees and the case open at his feet. There are a few coins in it, but the majority of the people are passing him by. He doesn't seem to notice them, for all the world lost in the tune. She comes a little closer and he catches her eye, and smiles, but he finishes the piece before he makes any further contact.

"I take requests," he says. "Anything in particular?"

Half a dozen pieces spring to the tip of Belle's tongue, but she shakes her head. He shrugs and takes up his bow again, playing a more lively tune this time, but still in the same haunting key. Belle wishes she had brought her purse. She wonders what he does with his time when he's not out here with his beautiful cello, playing such beautiful music.

She stays and listens to him for a while, wishing that she could think of something meaningful to say.

X

The man and his cello are regularly there, except when it's raining. He's never there at the same time each day, so Belle has to listen out for him, but when she hears him, she will always close her eyes and listen to his beautiful music. Like her mother, he has the melody in his very soul, she can feel it whenever he plays. Sometimes she leaves the library and goes outside to listen to him. She never gets too close, afraid of breaking the spell perhaps, but he always knows that she is there. She can always tell the moment he realises that she is there, the little smirk at the corner of his mouth as he continues to play without skipping a beat, flawless.

“I don’t bite, you know,” he says when he gets to the end of the tune and turns to her. Belle just smiles, and he returns the expression. There’s grey in his hair and lines around his eyes, and his is the face of a man who has seen much that he has not wanted to see. But when he plays, the years fall away from his still handsome face, the music fills him and uplifts him and he’s only half in the world with her, half elsewhere on some ethereal musical plane.

Belle begins to dream about him. She wants him to play her like his plays his cello, she imagines his long, slim fingers dancing over her skin in the same way they dance over the strings of his instrument, caressing her like he does his bow, never a false note or untrue melody. He could make her body sing for him like his cello does, she’s sure of it. She sees the passion in his dark eyes as he plays.

Ever since moving to Storybrooke and hearing him for the first time, Belle has looked more and more frequently at her violin case, tucked away out of sight in the top of her closet, still unable to part with it after all these years without use. But tonight, after another one-sided conversation with her mysterious cellist, wherein he made small talk with her between tunes and she just smiled and wished she knew what to say, how to compliment him, how to thank him for reawakening her love of music, she finds herself taking down the case and taking out her violin, tucking it in under her chin and touching the bow to the strings.

For a moment, there is silence. Then the faintest strains of cello music fade into her memory and she slides her bow across the strings.

The sound is jarring and discordant and she only just manages to stop herself from throwing the instrument down in her frustration and anger. It is not that she is out of practice, she is expecting to be after fifteen years without playing. It is just as she feared – the music that she makes does not sound the same as when her mother was standing by her side and they played their duets together.

But maybe, just maybe, Belle has found a new partner to duet with, and maybe, just maybe, their duet can be more than just musical. Belle knows nothing about this man. She has no idea if he has a significant other or a family of his own. But something tells her that he doesn’t. Something tells her that his music is the only other significance in his life, and he has been waiting for someone who feels the same way as he does about it.

Belle steels herself, slides her bow across the strings again, and tunes her violin for the first time in fifteen years. She grits her teeth through the jarring sounds until finally, she finds harmony again.

But even in tune, it still sounds wrong. It sounds… incomplete. She is used to playing solo pieces, but they do not sound the same now. The music she hears in her head is not just her own anymore; she can hear the cello’s lower tones intermingled with her own violin in her head.

Belle has an idea.

X

The next day, when Belle hears the melodies beneath the library office window begin during her lunch break, she wastes no time in taking up her case and making her way round the building. She sees her cellist’s little smirk as he notices her presence, and she moves a little closer, not wanting to interrupt him before he’s finished.

When he does come to the end of his piece, he looks over at her.

“I don’t bite, you know,” he says, his usual greeting, and finally, Belle trusts herself to speak back.

“I know.” She takes a step forward and holds up her violin case. “I… May I join you?”

He pats the space beside him on the bench. “You’d be most welcome, my dear.”

Belle goes to sit beside him and takes out her instrument.

“I haven’t played for a very long time,” she admits.

“It will come back,” he assures her. “Why don’t you start with something you know, and I’ll add the harmony when I can.”

“I haven’t played for fifteen years,” Belle admits, but she takes up her bow nonetheless. She can feel the cellist’s dark eyes watching her, but the sensation gives her strength, courage. She can do this, and he can help her.

She begins to play, and once he joins in, it finally sounds right. This is how the tune sounds in her head. This is what her music is supposed to sound like, rising where the cello falls, the melodies and harmonies in perfect collaboration. By the time they have come to the end of the piece, quite a crowd has gathered around them, and they receive a light pattering of applause.

Belle smiles at the cellist, a proper smile, not her shy little one that she has shown him before.

“Another tune?” she asks, a little breathlessly, because she had forgotten how wonderful it feels to play, to feel the music singing through her very veins. She had forgotten what it was like to be truly lost in melody, to drown in it.

“As you wish.”

They play until the clock strikes and Belle must reluctantly return to her work.

“Thank you,” she says as she packs away her violin and bow. “Thank you so much. It feels good to play again.”

“Thank you for your company and your counterpoint,” the cellist says. “I hope that we will play again together soon.”

Belle nods. “I’ll make sure of it.” She holds out her hand. “I’m Belle, by the way.”

“Gold.”

This could be the beginning of a beautiful duet.


End file.
